Friday, September 23, 2011

Discussing Approaches #2

There’s been much discussion today over our idea, and here I’ll try to surmise our line of thinking thus far.

Our idea is to illustrate the story of the Two Wolves with an animation that captures a frozen moment of time between the two wolves. Theatrical camera movement and staging of characters and props will be used to unravel the story, akin to Alfred Hitchcock's Rope and animations such as Apnee. This is to reflect the inner space within us, and perhaps the theatrical performance of the stage. The passage of time can be reflected with careful and seamless editing of frozen moments, not dissimilar to the idea of a modern La Jetée of sorts.

Only a select few of the qualities describing the wolves that echo the lines of good vs evil, will feature in our character and environment designs. For example:

Good Wolf
Peace, Benevolence, Love, Hope

Evil Wolf
Anger, Hate, Arrogance, Greed

These will be grounded with Native American culture and influences to reflect the philosophical origins of the tale.

Objects/props can help illustrate the two polar opposites. For instance, a Native American doll is presented to the two wolves where one is shown to care for the doll, the other destroys it, before descending into a final frame of eternal conflict. Acts such as this will help provide resonances of the ‘evil’ twin, sibling rivalries or the Doppelganger into the mix, reflecting the notion of the battle between good and evil raging within us.


Hope this clears things up a bit.

2 comments:

  1. Yes - this is feeling much more 'graspable' now as a planned experience. I know there was some early talk about each of you designing one wolf respectively and aiming to generate contrast there. This may have changed since, but I'd just suggest that maybe this is an unnecessary division of labour. If the Native American culture is the basis for all production design, then the designs should be cogent; arguably, it should feel as if the same pair of hands carved both 'props' - it feels essential actually, if the bigger argument is that both are one. Obviously, in terms of delineating character, there needs to be difference, but perhaps it should be difference as communicated by the same author... Your thoughts?

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